The first event for the Universiade 2017 in Taipei was the opening ceremony for the athlete’s village. (if some pictures show unavailable in the preview, click them to see the image on Flickr….no idea what’s going on)

While nothing sport-related was on the list, all the media outlets from Taiwan (and some from abroad as well) were present, ready to cover Mr Ko’s visit of the facility and opening speech. (Mr Ko is Taipei mayor)

It was hot af. The event started at 12. Luckily part of the tour went through the athletes’ rooms and the dining hall, but the ceremony itself was quite painful. Some areas of the yard were covered by the shade of neighboring buildings, and most people eventually moved there.

I think that all people who work there deserve some recognition, so while the bulk of the media was chasing Mr Ko everywhere, I spent some time taking pics of the employees and volunteers of the dining hall, who’ll spend two weeks working extremely long hours to provide food and accomodation to the thousands of people involved in the event.

We weren’t allowed to have any of that food. FEELSBADMAN.

I’ll be looking forward to the official opening ceremony in the arena, but that one has limited spaces so I can only keep my fingers crossed for that. Then in the following week I’ll attend most of the venues to take pics of several disciplines, starting from water polo. Some of the venues are really far from me so I’ll have to skip them.